Article/Document:

Research Synopsis On The Majestic Documents

Timothy S. Cooper

Summary: In this synopsis, I argue the theory that FOIA documents in the public domain are the remnants of a high level UFO intelligence and psychological warfare program of the United States Government which began in 1946 and the Majestic documents reflect what might be a overt part of such a program.

Timothy S. Cooper

In as much as the controversy surrounding the authenticity of the Majestic documents has generated in the last fifteen years among researchers, much evidence in the form of officially released documents through the Freedom of Information Act has either been ignored, or viewed as uninteresting by ufologists. In this synopsis, I argue the theory that FOIA documents in the public domain are the remnants of a high level UFO intelligence and psychological warfare program of the United States Government which began in 1946 and the Majestic documents reflect what might be a overt part of such a program. I also present documented proof that General Walter B.Smith, Director of Central Intelligence was the first DCI to preside over and coordinate all intelligence collection and dissemination functions of the U.S. intelligence community where UFO's played into psychological and intelligence operations in protecting U.S. strategic interests.

Contrary to popular belief, a coordinated program of UFO intelligence collection between the military and central intelligence began with General Hoyt S. Vandenberg in 1946 and was never properly implemented during Rear Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter's tenure as first Director of the Central Intelligence Agency due to the infighting between RHH and the Intelligence Advisory Board (IAB) dominated by high level military intelligence and State Department officials and did not begin until WBS was appointed DCI in October 1950. Also, given the fact that there may have been more than one Majestic project operating at two different levels, one conducted by the State Department and another by the CIA, it is possible that what researchers have studied is a hybrid mixture of both. I propose that the questionable documents known as Majestic or MJ-12 are extrapolations from covert and overt intelligence and psychological material that may have once existed but have long since been absorbed into today's unacknowledged black programs and are now gone forever.

In summary, the Majestic documents are, in all probability, an attempt by an informed person(s) to reconstruct for researchers a historical narrative based on non-existent and authentic documents supported by published facts with classic disinformation techniques in what is termed in counterintelligence parlance as "gray" intelligence. The question of whether they are genuine, authentic or real is not the issue here. The important point to keep in mind, as I believe, is the information contained in the documents themselves. For in these documents and the FOIA material already released, and the published facts contain the answers we all seek. The truth may be found in our individual perceptions.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Operational interest began in 1942 with General Donovan as Collector of Information (COI) and later Director of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) who enjoyed direct access to President Roosevelt. OSS later came under the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and in 1943 became militarized with a psychological warfare mission including counterintelligence, scientific intelligence, and covert warfare. It was General George C. Marshall and General Joseph McNarney who sorted out the OSS mission in 1942 and got Roosevelt's approval.

Intelligence on German advanced weapons and technical experts was the focus of the OSS during and after WW II, but bureaucrats tried to get everyone else to agree on some kind of standard definition"doctrine"for "psychological warfare." For obvious reasons, it was left undefined.

After the OSS was disestablished, General Vandenberg kept the capability alive under a psywar rubric for ten months while Director of the Central Intelligence Group (CIG) and rebuilt the organization. As Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force during the Korean War Vandenberg built up a staff and an operational psywar capability he wed that military capability to the CIA which was a new experience in the U.S. intelligence community"something Donovan could not accomplish in the OSS. The only authorizing documents were National Security Council directives 10/2 and 68 which were general and non-specific with the rule that if you can be successful on the ground, then history can,t detect one's tracks and the rest is history.

As for flying saucers (later designated unidentified flying objects in 1949) General Charles P. Cabell, Director of Air Force Intelligence reorganized its investigation Project GRUDGE to test the hypothesis by subjecting the UFO intelligence data to rigorous scrutiny of the Feynman method. In 1952, Cabell further enlarged the UFO intelligence collection in Project BLUE BOOK based on the GRUDGE model with recommendations that results be used for psychological warfare applications against the USSR. GRUDGE conclusions stated that the Air Force's "Psychological Warfare Division and other government agencies interested in psychological warfare should be informed of the results of this study." The "other" agencies included the psychological warfare unit at Ft. Riley, Kansas, established in June 1947, Department of State as designated by President Truman to coordinate all U.S. psychological warfare known as the "Bartlett Committee" authorized by NSC 4 of 19 December 1947, Secretary of Defense James Forrestal who incorporated a secret annex to NSC 4 which directed the DCI to supplement the overt with covert psychological warfare, and the CIA's Directorate of Operations which carried out Forrestal's annex.

In 1947, General Eisenhower sent a memorandum to his Assistant Chief of Staff for Plans and Operations (WDGS/G-3) wherein Eisenhower indicated his desire that the War Department "take those stepsnecessary to keep alive the arts of psychological warfare and of cover and deception and that there should continue in being a nucleus of personnel capable of handling these arts in case an emergency arises" (19 June 1947, RG319, Army Operations, P&O 091.412, NARA). In September 1947, Lt. General Albert C. Wedemeyer became Army G-3 who responded to Eisenhower's urging in various ways over the next year. In the spring of 1951 the General School at Ft. Riley offered a seven-week PW course and in the autumn of 1952 a formal Army PW service school was established at Ft. Bragg with an additional seventeen-week course of instruction and training.

In September 1947, Lt. General Albert C. Wedemeyer returned to the United States after his China and Korea mission and became the Army G-3 who responded to Eisenhower's urging initiated a psychological warfare strategy plan for 1949 war plans (a major problem since there was no formal planning for PW training). In April 1950, President Truman personally approved the creation of the Psychological Warfare Strategy Board (PWSB). High officials of the War Department and the Army who actively promoted the immediate post-war development of PW starting in 1946 through 1950 included:

Secretary of the Army, the Honorable Kenneth Royall Secretary of War, the Honorable Robert Patterson Assistant Secretary of the Army, the Honorable Gordon Gray Chief of Staff and General of the Army, Dwight D. Eisenhower Lt. General Albert C. Wedemeyer, USA Brigadier General Robert McClure, USA Lt. General J. Lawton Collins, USA Major General Charles Bolte, USA Undersecretary of War, the Honorable William Draper Major General Stephen Chamberlain, USA (G-2)

The OSS drafted the first "Basic Estimate of the Psychological Warfare Situation" in 1942 and the Army drafted the first "National Psychological Plan for General War" in September 1951 (which supported the State Department's "Russian Plan.") The USAF officially established a PW staff in February 1948 and drafted "Special Plans" through 1949; by early 1951, the Air Force had launched a major PW operation closely coupled with PW operations of the CIA.

As the GRUDGE report points out, sightings of flying saucers in the U.S. reached their crescendo in June 1947. This is the same month and year in which Eisenhower directed the WDGS/G-3 to maintain a psychological warfare and counterintelligence directorate capability; in which the first post-war Army experimental (prototype) PW tactical unit was activated at Fort Riley and in which the Army Ground General School started an extension (correspondence) training course for Army Reserve intelligence specialists in psychological warfare (the late P.J. Corso claims he saw an alien life form and flying saucer parts temporarily stored at Fort Riley on 6 July, 1947). Co-author W.J. Birnes stated in a private conversation with Corso, that the Fort Riley material came exclusively from Corso (it should be noted that Corso was a staff officer of the Psychological Warfare Board during the Eisenhower Administration).

There are other PW implications buried in the GRUDGE report. One of them is that the RAND Corporation consulting report to Project GRUDGE of 1948 by Dr. J.E. Lipp carefully examined the ETH saying, in effect, that at the time the only known technology of space travel would be rockets and that "a trip from another star system requires improvements of propulsion that we have not yet considered." The problem here, as I see it, the questioned Majestic documents discuss both fission"or fusion"based power plants of a downed, recovered UFO in 1947? Is NEPA a coincidence and does it explain a connection? In 1947, NEPA conceived a viable fission"based power source for a nuclear"powered aircraft but had not yet constructed a prototype power source. Dr. Lipp assumed, for argument's sake, that Martians may have developed a nuclear, hydrogen"propelled vehicle as the most efficient basic arrangement yet conceived by Earthlings. He wrote that in principle a large part of the Martian's nuclear material mass might be converted into jet energy but that Earthlings "have no idea how to do this" and "that the materials required to withstand the temperaturemay be fundamentally unattainable." The implication of this 1947"1948 state"of"the"art is, that no one at that time would recognize it for what it might otherwise be neither a nuclear power plant in a crashed spaceship nor any more exotic power plant, including one not based on any reaction mass.

About three years after the GRUDGE report was disseminated to other agencies with an interest in PW, in 1952 technical people of the CIA began interacting closely with the Air Force's Project GRUDGE successor, Project BLUE BOOK as CIA/OSI was closely embracing BLUE BOOK by August 1952. A detailed memorandum from CIA/OSI to DCI of 24 September, 1952 reviewed the Air Force's AMC/ATIC work in ufology and discussed the UFO phenomenon for U.S. national security in "a situation of international tension," but two months after the Korean War armistice. This memorandum, originally classified, was declassified in 1978. It states that UFO implications for U.S. national security consist of two parts:

The then inability of U.S. air defenses to distinguish "hardware from phantom", i.e., false air raid warning, especially the identification of real (Soviet) air attack as a phantom (this had happened at least once during the Korean War on 6 December, 1950).

The psychological implication which had to do with whether or not the Soviet Union or the U.S. might be able to manipulate the UFO phenomenon "from a psychological warfare point of view" as based on controlling and predicting it both defensively and offensively. This memorandum went on to recommend that the "United States psychological warfare planners" determine what use could be made of the UFO phenomenon against the Soviet Union.

An earlier CIA memorandum of 1 August, 1952 to OSI from one of its divisions (Weapons and Equipment) said that a large percentage of ATIC (BLUE BOOK) UFO reports "are clearly phony,."

Basically, the CIA/OSI"DCI memorandum of 24 September, 1952 said the same thing about UFO's and PW as did the Project GRUDGE report of three years earlier, i.e., that the UFO phenomenon had a lot of psychological aspects that would allow it to be manipulated for Cold War PW purposes and benefits.

In any case, it was this CIA/OSI collaboration with the Air Force PW operations directly led to the DCI referring to the U.S. Psychological Warfare Board (the covert operations committee of the Truman NSC) the subject of PW while also directly leading the CIA to formulate and execute the so"called "Robertson Panel" of January 1953. The Robertson Panel's report basically confirmed the work of CIA/OSI. The initial PSB's principals were: the DCI (chairman); the Undersecretary of State (James Webb, later Administrator of NASA in the Kennedy Administration); the Deputy Secretary of Defense (Robert A. Lovett, later a special advisor to President Kennedy) and a small, functional staff directed by former Assistant Army Secretary, the Honorable Gordon Gray.

CIA AND COUNTER INTELLIGENCE

The CIA was assigned by the Eisenhower Administration the task of preparing a proposed plan of action. Upon executive approval, CIA became responsible for its execution. General Charles P. Cabell as DDCI established a policy "that if a function was susceptible of more efficient fulfillment on a centralized basis for all three Services" opted for centralization. To make this work, DCI brought in James J. Angelton in 1954 to head up a secret department within CIA known as Counter Intelligence (CI). The activities and function of Angelton was largely unknown in CIA and had direct access to Allan W. Dulles. Angelton was a rouge who did not abide by normal procedures and enjoyed plausible denial protection and kept CIA involvement in UFO/PW operations away from public knowledge until 1978. For twenty years, JJA was in charge of the CIA's Counter Intelligence Staff and legendary mole hunter. His role was not revealed until 1968, fifteen years after he had assumed his post. His main task was to prevent other countries from learning the secrets of the United States. In 1952, Angelton had assumed a top position in the agency's clandestine directorate guiding and controlling covert operations. To make CI effective Cabell wedded the military to CIA covert and overt operations by providing personnel to the CIA/CI. To broaden the base of DDCI, Cabell made JJA his liaison to the armed services.

Another point to consider in CIA/CI was the relationship between Allan Dulles and his brother John Foster Dulles who was Secretary of State during Allan's tenure as DCI and this relationship contributed to "maximum effectiveness" as Cabell states in his memoirs. As Director of CI, Angelton employed the services of CIA Project MK-ULTRA and other mind control methods to protect the CIA/UFO/PW agenda against Soviet double agents who came into CI custody. Angelton also had solid connections to the National Security Agency and possessed NSA HUMINT files from allied intelligence on JFK's "SAPPHIRE" letter to French President Charles de Gualle which may have contributed to Kennedy's murder in 1963. I suspect that JJA supplied Dulles NSA phone intercepts, coordinated State Department back channel information regarding PW operations that embarrassed President Eisenhower with disclosures that Kennedy was eroding his presidency and Nixon's covert aims at running the White House.

TRUMAN AND COVERT OPERATIONS

In 1952, President Truman had effectively created national security statecraft through the National Security Act of 1947 and overt and covert policy through the CIA and NSA was in place when he met with president"elect Eisenhower to the White House for a high level briefing by top officials. One of his first decisions as president was to appoint General Nathan F. Twining as Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Eisenhower had picked up where Truman had left off by wedding science and technology in weapons development. He had launched the Army's postwar research and development program and had been won over to a military strategy of U.S. competitive advantage in nuclear weapons, airpower, and rockets to deter Soviet aggression. If MJ-12 had ascended to the highest levels of power during Truman's Administration, it was now in position to move into the White House itself. General of the Army George C. Marshall and supporters in the War Department succeeded in the unification of the armed forces under a single department of defense. Lt. General McNarney and General Collins had drafted the plan of coordination and centralization and the marriage of the Technical Capabilities Panel headed by James R. Killian, Jr., president of MIT (who later became Eisenhower's scientific advisor). The Office of Defesne Mobilization (ODM) had been approved by Truman and now, in 1953, Eisenhower approved recommendations made by Nelson Rockerfeller and supported by Robert Cutler, Ike's national security advisor, Vannevar Bush, the CIA, and ODM provided a list of qualified experts as a ad hoc panel of scientists to advise the NSC on MJ-12 proposals and other issues. To aid Eisenhower in selecting the most appropriate course in air defense and the whole UFO problem, he appointed a special study group headed by the president of Bell Laboratories. Truman had received a classified report from Dean Acheson, Robert Lovett, and Averal Harriman. Their conclusions stated that it was impossible to erect an impenetrable defense which led Eisenhower to approve NSC 135/3 "United States Objectives and Strategy for National Security" that continued the line of support and strategy laid out in NSC 68 and similar documents. If Stanton Friedman,s Final Report on Operation Majestic 12 gets further confirmation on DCI Walter B. Smith,s secret briefings given to Eisenhower before he met Truman (Eisenhower and Truman were seen sitting stone cold publicly in the executive limousine on their way to Ike,s swearing in) it may mean that Eisenhower did not agree with Truman,s covert UFO research program. Bush, as head of the Research and Development Board (RDB) suggested the creation of the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group (WSEG) in 1947 and 1948 without much success due in large part by the Joint Chiefs of Staff which he viewed as a "clear invasion into the affairs of the Board." Without disclosing intent (the establishment of MJ-12), Bush submitted a special report to Truman urging the Budget Bureau to create a new division to advise the president on matters regarding the organization and budgeting of government research programs (in 1948, the Pentagon accounted for over 60% of all research and development expenditures, including grants to universities for defense research).

AREA 51

Protecting a secret is as, if not more important than the secret itself and this was never more true of the atomic"powered aircraft research that existed at Los Alamos and Area 51 at the Nevada atomic proving ground. In 1950, defense spending mushroomed to an annual 50 billion dollar budget. The CIA Act of 1949 gave greater significance to black budget spending and program management protecting covert technology projects. As with the Manhattan Project, carefully selected sites in remote and unpopulated areas in the Nevada desert were chosen to conduct advanced research and development of America,s best kept secret. Unconventional sky platforms. Accordingly, the CIA Act of 1949 engendered the maximum security placed on any department of the government that included housing, commerce, construction, transportation, et. al."could transfer funds for CIA covert operations "without regard to any provision of law."

In the summer of 1952, DCI Walter B. Smith sent a memorandum to the Director, Psychological Strategy Board outlining the CIA,s proposal to the NSC concerning "problems" related to UFO program management indicating that there were clear "implications for psychological warfare" and a much needed charter for "intelligence and operations" in which Smith desired discussions along these lines for the "utilization of these phenomenon for psychological warfare purposes." In tab (a) Smith drafted the CIA program proposal to the NSC Executive Secretary concerning the "current situation" regarding press coverage of UFO sightings from domestic and foreign sources so far analyzed by the Office of Scientific Intelligence and Weapons Evaluation Department. Given the fact that CIA analysts had ruled out 80% as prosaic or man"made, Smith was concerned with the remaining 20% which might compromise classified defense projects requested a much "broader, coordinated effort" to shore up the Air Forces UFO project and add a higher degree of confidence within the CIA that "present efforts" were not going to be derailed. Smith strongly recommended that the CIA "and agencies of the Department of Defense be directed to formulate and carry out a program of intelligence and research" necessary to "solve the problem of instant positive identification" of UFO sightings. In tab (b) Smith drafted what the CIA UFO project required in the form of assistance and cooperation to make the agency,s "program of intelligence and research" doable:

The Director of Central Intelligence shall formulate and carry out a program of intelligence and research activities as required to solve the problem of instant positive identification of unidentified flying objects.

Upon call of the Director of Central Intelligence, Government departments and agencies shall provide assistance in this program of intelligence and research to the extent of their capacity provided, however, that the DCI shall avoid duplication of activities toward the solution of this problem.

This effort shall be coordinated with the military services and the Research and Development Board of the Department of Defense, with the Psychological Strategy Board and other Government agencies as appropriate.

The Director of Central Intelligence shall disseminate information concerning the program of intelligence and research activities in this field to the various departments and agencies which have authorized interest therein.

Note: For a detailed look at the Walter B. Smith Memo please see the following pages below.

The NSC 68 estimate suggested that the Soviets were throwing large amounts of precious resources into armaments of all kinds and supported Smith's outlook on the possibility of "total war" and "annihilation" unless the U.S. gained the high ground in technological developments. Thus, a need for another Manhattan Project was endorsed by President Eisenhower and immediate steps were taken to locate and build a research center in the Nevada desert. This site was located just outside of Nellis AFB. The CIA and Lockheed, its primary contractor began occupying various sites controlled by the Atomic Energy Commission known as Groom Lake for black projects such as ANGEL, AQUITONE, OXCART, LOOKING GLASS, and a host of others. Other sites were later constructed at Papoose Lake, Tonopah Test Range, Indian Springs, and annex sites in New Mexico, California, Arizona, and Texas to facilitate other "agencies" involved in the "program."

To insure the security of the "program" carried out at these sites, an elaborate camouflage operation was conducted by the CIA and the Air Force known to all researchers as Project BLUE BOOK. Initiated by Major General Charles P. Cabell USAF, Director of Air Force Intelligence, Project BLUE BOOK (the successor to GRUDGE) began in the spring of 1952 for the sole purpose of collecting information from all sources including the public and forwarding it to the DCI for further evaluation as specified in Smith's 1952 NSC draft memorandum. In April 1953, Cabell was sworn in as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence by President Eisenhower shortly after Major Edward Ruppelt left the project. Cabell was appraised of the CIA's January 1953 assessment in which H.P. Robertson, Director of the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group presided over concurred with GRUDGE recommendations to "strip the Unidentified Flying Objects of special status" and "institute policies on intelligence" by "an integrated programto train personnel to recognize and reject false indicationsand strengthen regular channels for the evaluation of and prompt reaction to true indications of hostile measures."

I find it interesting that the alleged Top Secret Special Operations Manual dated April 1954 defined the reason for deception and camouflage of the CIA's UFO "intelligence and research activities" by stating that the greatest threat to secrecy was "the acquisition and study of such advanced technology by foreign powers unfriendly to the United States." This concern is echoed in a 1952 briefing given to Air Defense Command units of the classified activities of the Air Technical Intelligence Center "is not to investigate "flying saucer" reports, it is charged with prevention of technological surprise by a foreign country." The manual also relates how the camouflage operated by imposing a "total press blackout" and issuing "cover stories" prefaced by official denials. This is quite similar to past modus operandi employed by military and CIA covert operations and PSYOP policies of psychological warfare. This could have been the same policy for the Air Force's Project SILVER BUG, a jet powered flying saucer test bed aircraft development for vertical takeoff and landing fighters and bombers. It is also the same year that a case study in psychological warfare manual was published for the Department of the Army titled A Psychological Warfare Casebook, Technical Memorandum ORO-T-360 and revised in1956 and 1958 under contract with Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University.

By January 1955, the CIA and the Air Force had launched various weapons and systems projects under the cloak of the highest national security umbrella for remote"guided weapons, uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAV's), high altitude reconnaissance aircraft and advanced material production for space weapons applications.

General Cabell mentioned the difficult task of UFO intelligence and research experienced by the Air Force and CIA in his memoirs and made a provocative statement regarding the results of BLUE BOOK when he wrote that "it [must] be remembered that it was not until December 1969 that the Air Force felt justified in ruling out any substance of a harmful nature in the mass of reports about "Flying Saucers" or "Unidentified Flying Objects"" and that it "took all those years, the efforts of several boards of very learned men, and above all, the sophisticated knowledge that came from our space program, including a successful landing on the moon, to give this confidence."

This confidence did not extend to the CIA for their analysts were not convinced that all UFO sightings were associated with the things GRUDGE and BLUE BOOK identified as mentioned in a 1 August, 1952 memorandum from the Weapons and Equipment Division to the Deputy Assistant Director of Scientific Intelligence that recommended "that CIA surveillance of subject matter, in coordination with proper authorities of primary operational concern at ATIC, be continued" and that no indication of CIA interest or concern reach the press." This fact was not known until 1978 when the CIA was compelled by court order to search for UFO documents and declassified and released them in 1980 to the public through the Freedom of Information Act. I find it very curious that the Air Force released a fact sheet along with newly declassified CIA UFO files to me on September 23, 1998 in which (as they have always done) state that BLUE BOOK was discontinued (the public experiment) on December 17, 1969, in which 701 sightings remained unidentified and based on the University of Colorado report "Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects" as a "Air Force experience" from Project SIGN, GRUDGE, and BLUE BOOK (USAF Fact Sheet 95"03). An even more curious fact is found in the fact sheet that suggests a continuing surveillance by the Air Force that "nothing has occurred that would support a resumption of UFO investigations. Given the current environment of steadily decreasing defense budgets, it is unlikely the Air Force would become involved in such a costly project in the foreseeable future." This may not be so, for CIA and NSA UFO files of the 70's through the 90's have Air Force activities on their distribution lists. I believe Air Force Intelligence still maintains a "world"wide reporting system" and continues to "make interceptions of unidentified flying objects" as stated in a September 24, 1952 CIA memorandum from H. Marshall Chadwell, Assistant Director for Scientific Intelligence to DCI Walter B. Smith that "whether or not these sightings:

(1) could be controlled;

(2) could be predicted; and

(3) could be used from a psychological warfare point of view, either offensively or defensively." I also believe the same policy of "what should be told the public" for the same reasons Chadwell demonstrated over 50 years ago a "community"wide coordinated effort" continues to operate.

I can only conclude at this point that whatever work is going on at Area 51 and annex sites that warrants the use of "deadly force" on deliberate or accidental intruders on the ground or in the air, the tales coming from "insiders" and much speculation on just what deserves such extreme protection was out of public view for nearly 40 years.

THE MAJESTIC TWELVE DOCUMENTS"AUTHENTIC OR DISINFORMATION?

In this final segment of my synopsis, I would like to draw your attention to some little known and misunderstood facts that surfaced in my year"long review of the questionable documents as a whole. First, I would like to make on point very clear, and that is; they do not presume to be designed to mislead ufologists into accepting what some experts believe are bad history or poorly done reporting of facts. To those who have taken the time to carefully research the data, they have yielded unexpected surprises which has opened up new pathways to other documents that would have otherwise not been located in official archives. That's important and essential to understanding the design and intent of the writer(s) who were responsible for their creation. The main objection, which has been put forward by so many researchers"is that they reflect information that, so far as I know, seem out of place and do not fit into conventional Department of Defense classification of the period. This is a valid objection. Another is"they are not (with exception of a few documents) virgin material. That is, they are not original documents and lack proper control and registry security numbers and cover sheets for document management by custodians of classified information. And finally, but most importantly, they do not entirely fit in with official UFO history. One could argue that a extraterrestrial spacecraft could have crashed in the remote New Mexican desert 53 years ago, the military recovered it and the President ordered everyone involved to keep his mouth shut about it. This is all quite plausible. The other side to this, that is, keeping this fact secret by so many for so long without a trace of connected physical evidence or some kind of official paper trail strains one's credibility. How could such a broad and sweeping intelligence and research operation involving possibly tens of thousands of military and civilian personnel funded by a budget larger than the Manhattan project under the most extreme security precautions escape the notice of just about everyone in the federal government? For that I have no answer to. It is a fact that the military, the CIA, NSA, NRO, FBI, DIA, NASA, and just about every other alphabet agency in the U.S. intelligence community can and has kept secrets from us for as long as it remains a secret and will employ any means to keep it secret. We have history on our side to prove it. The United States Government has over 200 years of experience in running statecraft secrecy and has the bureaucracy and resources to bury information it does not want the public to know. The government, by its own mass and structure, can also be a castle with many rooms and secret closets whose existence is not known by even the servants. Only those who possess the "keys" can unlock these hidden doors of secrets. I believe, in this case, the Majestic documents are a kind of "key" or cipher to a much larger information code to a much larger, but darker secret about American history of which we are only beginning to learn about. We still don,t know why U.S. intelligence allowed the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor or if President Roosevelt knew of the attack in advance. We still don,t know why President Kennedy was shot to death in broad daylight in front of so many witnesses who saw more than three snipers shoot from three different locations and the president's body was "altered" and the autopsy changed to make it look like the work of one gunman. We can speculate and theorize for another 50 years on this issue, but until the agencies responsible see it in their best interest to release this information, we can only piece together unconnected facts and second hand testimony in a chance reconstruction of what we think might have happened.

In my own humble opinion, the Majestic documents are basically reliable as far as content is concerned with the exception of questionable hypothesis that there are other intelligent, thinking, machine building cultures visiting planet earth on a regular, day to day basis. The documents may be a product of either U.S. or Soviet disinformation whose target may be the defense establishments and the economic machinery of war making. They may be a product of the art of psychological warfare whose purpose is to throw doubt and suspicion among an enemy causing him to divert his defenses in a direction of attack that never came. It may be the work of a lonely, disgruntled, and frustrated ufologist who desperately wanted to project his own personal belief in aliens from another world on the rest of us for reasons not apparent. Or"they could be real. One theory that has been advanced over the last few years is that the Majestic documents were written by a remorseful but clever intelligence professional wishing to expose a cover"up by the intelligence community for personal reasons. Given the psychology of UFO researchers and their propensity to dig for facts, the perpetrator may have understood this and injected truth with falsehoods as a test of will and determination on the researcher's part to get to the truth. Or"the whole thing is just a hoax by someone who enjoys seeing the UFO community upset and split apart by personal differences and wants a good laugh on everyone. So far, this scenario has not surfaced which is surprising to say the least.

There is one document that does not connect to any MJ-12 organization nor pretends to project fantasy is the Einstein/Oppenheimer opinion draft of June 1947. I have spent considerable time and research on both scientists and their backgrounds and personal lives that leads me to believe the document to be reflective of the time and paranoia that really existed among military intelligence. The style, choice of words, reflection of the "inner man" thoughts on scientific probability and the realization of the terrible consequences of nuclear annihilation are consistent with both Einstein and Oppenheimer views of the time. Both were instrumental in the development of atomic weapons. Both entertained personal beliefs that mankind is not unique in the universe. And both, irrespective of what you may believe were secretly involved in extending the physics of atomic energy to a new level of understanding through peaceful applications of the atomic structure of the single unifying force that drives the physical universe. It may be only coincidence but both men saw their careers cut short within one year of each other. Oppenheimer in 1954 by the AEC and Einstein's death in 1955. Both had security dossiers in the Army, FBI, AEC, and CIA. Both were considered high security risks in the Manhattan project and were labeled communists by the government. Most importantly, both were visionaries in their fields (Einstein was selected as Time magazine Man of the Century and the development of the atomic bomb as the most significant bench mark of human achievements in science).

As to the rest of the documents, I can only conclude based on what I have studied in the last year are likely to be, as I have already pointed out, accurate in a historical context and possibly reflect the politics and statecraft of the times.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Authenticating any Majestic document may be improbable in the present environment and could take many years of painstaking research and analysis which, in either case would be a costly and controversial undertaking. As an alternative to a long drawn out process of elimination, I recommend that the psychological warfare theory be considered along with research directed in the field of nuclear"powered aircraft and missile development as possible approaches in solving the implications made in the documents. I also recommend that further FOIA requests be directed at the CIA's AEC intelligence files of the 1950's and 60's as possible confirmation for MAJIC security classification. Background research on individuals mentioned would also yield more information and associations with classified defense projects connected to known black programs of the CIA and NRO. I would also suggest that a reexamination of released UFO documents including Project BLUE BOOK as a least expensive approach to making connections to the CIA and possibly proving that a formal UFO intelligence and research program did exist and thereby establishing factual evidence for a Majestic" like operation. A reexamination of the AEC's Manhattan Project files from NARA would provide the best model in which to construct a workable hypothesis for understanding the security structure for the claims made in the documents which may lead to further documents. As a way of verification of Operation Paperclip involvement a FOIA request to the CIA would be in order, at least to confirm which German scientist was employed to work in classified AEC, CIA, and USAF research projects.